No Music
by Baxaronn
Summary: Fubuki sits alone in a room, making noise. Eventually, Ryo joins him. Together, they stand around in a messy room and absolutely fail to clean it up. Originally posted on gx contest. And it won! Yaaaay.


**Title:** No Music

**Rating:** PG

**Pairings/Characters:** Ryo and Fubuki

**Notes:** Originally written for the Livejournal community gx_contest.

**Warnings:** Neglect of responsibility to clean up after oneself.

* * *

Fubuki had somehow managed to sprawl himself across seven chairs without falling due to imbalance. Equally mystifying was how he had made such an arrangement with enough room that he could be playing an acoustic guitar while lying on his back. As literally all over the Blue common room as a person can be without having severed limbs, he strummed random strings in no particular tune or order, humming single notes that were so drawn out he could not possibly be playing a song. He did not technically belong here, because he had not yet been reassigned a room, and thus existed in a kind of dormless limbo. He had been in the Blue dorms two years previous, but it was not this building he had lived in, and thus paperwork had to be done in order to officially accommodate him. It could have been done when he was still in the hospital, but while he was comatose no one was sure if or when a room would become necessary. So, despite his obvious ease at being all over the place, this was not actually his place to be all over, yet.

His discordant strumming attracted little attention, as most people were inclined to ignore him at the best of times, and nonmusical noise is generally not something people flock to. The older students did not want to talk to him either for fear they'd hear something disturbing, or because they had similar disturbing experiences they did not want reminding of. The younger students were convinced he and all the other recovered seniors were either cursed or insane, or both, and were scared to go near them. Fubuki's apparent refusal to play anything resembling music did not help much, as his erratic and pointless recital would really only lend to the general consensus that there was something wrong with him. But he didn't seem to care. There was no evidence that he was looking for an audience. Which was a bit strange, for Fubuki.

But besides the lack of appealing performance, the door was open only a tiny crack, enough to tell people something was inside but not enough to seem welcoming. The weather outside, as well, was very fair, and everyone who wasn't doing homework in their rooms was probably outside enjoying the sun. As there were no definable seasons on the island, it was usually nice enough to be outside even in what would normally be winter months. Today, a Sunday, was a day with no classes, everyone was allowed to do whatever pleased them, and as far as Fubuki knew he was the only person who had decided to spend his time indoors, doing essentially nothing.

And so he strummed, face towards the ceiling and eyes shut, accidentally hitting a chair back with the neck of his guitar every so often, which made another unpleasant sound that reverberated throughout the empty room every time it happened. His hair swept the floor every time he moved, which was rather frequent, as his neck was in such a position that he had to keep readjusting where his head was or else it would start to ache. Beams of sunlight so bright that they looked like solid objects leaned against the window, flickering in and out of existence every time the curtains moved, which was rather infrequent as there wasn't much wind that day. Sometimes, instead of humming, Fubuki would whistle. But usually he hummed, because humming was nice, and he wasn't very good at whistling without it sounding all toothy and weak. A thwacking noise told him he had hit the chair again, and the guitar echoed a loud, deep screech that made him wonder how odd it was that he could describe a sound as both deep and screeching at the same time. Though there was no proof of correlation between the two events, the noise seemed to have summoned someone else to the room: Ryo pushed open the door cautiously, as though he were entering a bathroom he wasn't sure was empty, and then strode inside confidently, realizing that he had not walked in on anyone and could now relieve himself in relative peace. Fubuki did not notice him immediately, as his ears were full of metallic twonging and his eyes were closed.

"Fubuki," Ryo said, standing next to the chair that supported his addressee's head, arms customarily crossed over his chest. Fubuki pressed down on the strings to stop them from vibrating, abruptly silencing the room so that he could properly pay attention to his guest. He looked up at the bottom Ryo's chin and grinned, partially for joy at the arrival of his friend and partially because this angle made his face look funny.

"Ryo! Such a pleasant surprise," he replied, straining his eyes to try and match Ryo's instead of sitting up.

"I've been told to inform you of something."

"What's the dealio, squeelio?"

"You've been assigned a room."

"And what room is that?"

"Mine. This is why I'm the one telling you."

"Really? Hella awesome. When should I move in?"

"It doesn't really ma—"

"This conversation isn't working. Sit down so I don't have to look up at you."

Ryo raised an eyebrow, a response that was quite dissimilar to what Fubuki was asking him to do. "Wouldn't it make more sense for you to get up?"

"Noooooooo," Fubuki groaned. "I don't waaaaaannaaaa."

"Is that even comfortable?"

"No, but that's not the point. Just get down here."

Though he loathed sitting as a general rule, today seemed to be an occasion of good will, for he relinquished to Fubuki's demands and procured a chair to sit on from under a nearby table. Satisfied that Ryo was now basically on the same level as him, Fubuki rolled as far onto his side as he could without having to put his guitar down, which wasn't very far, and grinned again.

"What are you even doing in here?" Ryo asked. One thing he disliked about chairs was that, unless he was at a table, he felt awkward having nothing particular to do with his unoccupied legs. He wasn't entirely sure why he was so aware of them, but regardless he felt silly and regretted acquiescing to Fubuki's stupid needs.

"Nothing really. Strumming. Chairs. All that."

"You've been doing this a lot lately."

"What, chairs?"

"No. Avoiding people."

Fubuki's grin dropped from his face, and he turned to look back up at the ceiling. "Have I?" he wondered. "I'm not trying to."

"I keep finding you in strange places. You hide in rafters a lot."

"I like climbing things."

"I mean, you're more likely to do something solitary than I'm used to."

"I spend plenty of time with people."

"Comparably, no."

"Compared to what?"

"Before you disappeared."

Fubuki did not respond for a minute, choosing instead to stare at the ceiling and strum a chord he'd forgotten the name of a few times. He hummed, a sound that could have meant he was thinking of what to say, or that he was trying to find a note for comparison to whatever he'd just played. He tried to nonchalantly scratch his head, to prove that he had heard what Ryo said and was thinking about it instead of just ignoring him, but his elbow bumped into a chair before his hand reached his scalp.

"I dunno. I don't really know how to talk to people anymore," he said finally, sliding his hand under his head so as to separate it from the hard plastic of the chair that until now he had not been especially bothered by. "I haven't seen anybody…I haven't been here for something like two years. It's like…"

"Like you don't remember how to interact with other people?"

"Nah. More like…I feel kinda detached. Being at school isn't normal anymore. Which is weird, 'cause I still barely remember anything about where I was."

Ryo considered this for a while, but never thought of anything to say about it. "Is that your guitar?" he asked, giving up and changing the subject.

"Yeah. It was in my old room. I'm surprised no one stole it," he said, still looking at the ceiling. "I don't remember any songs. At all."

Ryo stood up and pushed his chair back under the table. "It doesn't matter. We should get your stuff out of the nurse's office. Do you need help getting up?" he asked, correctly assuming that Fubuki would not be able to get out of the position he'd put himself in without either dropping his guitar or falling to the floor and possibly getting mauled by overbalanced chairs. Fubuki held the instrument out for Ryo to take from him, adopted a zombie stance and pulled himself upright with his arms. One chair shifted out of place when he tried to stand up, but it only made him stumble a little, and he managed to escape without incident. He took back his guitar, forgot to put it back in its case, and together they left the room in complete disarray, chairs still clustered and ready for someone else to make a bed of them.

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What did you think? Tell me about it. Or don't. Whatever you like.


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